RE: Of my
stuff? Your criticism helped me rewrite my first superhero novel. I don’t think
a writer can improve without criticism. But that opinion is subject to change
too.

DF: Do you crave recognition?

RE: Anything
that hard to get deserves to be craved, hunted down, taken, beheaded then eaten.
It has taken a long time.

DF: What audience are you trying to
reach with your work? Is there an audience for Raymond Embrack?

RE: I write
for outlaw bikers and Japanese strippers. I made the mistake of writing the
work before defining the audience. Maybe I’ll do better next time.

DF: How do you use social media to
promote your writing?

RE: That’s
something I’m still figuring out.

DF: One of the things I love about
your writing is that it so fearlessly non-PC and for me that’s refreshing. Was
that a conscious decision on your part or did your writing just develop that
way over time?

RE: Why
does the best stuff tend to be anti-PC? It just is. For better or worse I have always
gone for that in my writing. To me there’s no point in holding back.

DF: Who is Peter Surf? Where did he
come from and why does he make you want to write about him?

RE: Surf has
been around since the 1990s. He got his name from the music in “Pulp Fiction”. From
there my action hero took shape. Surf is a comedian, a badass, a killer. Surf
is not an anti-hero, he is my version of the most interesting man in the world.
That is a guy who does all things with swagger. Is he a male fantasy? I can’t
pretend he’s a realistic character. The action hero exists to hit that sweet
spot just short of the mask & cape.

DF: I love the concept of Blonde
City. Where did that come from?

RE: For me
there was more escapism value in making up a city than using an existing and
probably over-used setting. It gives me way more to play with. This is
America’s newest city, one made of sudden wealth, gloss and hype. It only hires
policemen who are hot. It gives the homeless lipstick.

DF: Which Peter Surf novel was your
favorite to write?

RE: Has to
beThe
Guns of Tony Franciosa. I took it off the market just so I could keep
rewriting it.

DF: What is the future of Peter
Surf?

RE: He
seems a few books short, so more Surf will happen.

DF: Perhaps my favorite book of
yours I’ve read so far is EL MOROCCO. It’s the swingin’ 60s on crack. What was the
inspiration for that story and the characters?

RE: The
inspiration was John Ridley’s “A
Conversation with the Mann” his comedian/swingin’ 60s novel. Had to write
my own version, plus I’m a fan of the “Mad Men era.”

DF: How much of a superhero fan are
you?

RE: I’m an
unfrozen fan. I have to work my way up to “nerd.” Real nerds read and watch
everything and know all. After years focused on crime fiction, I’m returning to
the thing I started with. I now get that the superhero can be as ambitious a character
to write but one even closer to the brain’s pleasure center.

RE: Typically
superheroes exist in a world where comic book superheroes never existed. In the
AXIS world they exist in this world
with its same comic book culture. That is only possible when somehow the
reality follows the archetype. I took that premise and fused it with my older
sci-fi concept of an alien that takes the form of an Earth city. That formed the AXIS concept.

I wouldn’t
call it “alternate history” more like “alternate present.” In 1970, from
nowhere the city of Brutalia appeared in one day. It is the only city where
superpowers exist. Outside the city superpowers cease to exist. There, three
major organizations are at war, AXIS, the superheroes who seek to keep
superpowers from reaching the outside world; the OGD (Order of Global
Domination) the supervillains who seek to export superpowers to conquer the
outside world; O.U.T.S.I.D.E., superheroes seeking to export superpowers to
benefit the outside world.

Oddly
enough, I see these characters with the realism I don’t see Peter Surf. These
are not anti-heroes or anti-supervillains, they are multidimensional people
redefined by gestalt myth made reality. Their superpowers are their career.
Both AXIS and the OGD have Washington lobbyists. Like real people, they don’t all
automatically invent new super identities, they become existing fictional
superheroes, as when one of them attempted to become a real Wonder Woman. The
leader of AXIS becomes the (fictional) KM Comics brand superheroes of his teens.

The novels
are themselves a process as, from an amnesiac fog, Brutalia, its people, their
memory, its mysteries, and the culture around it evolves, mutates, take shape.
There is room for years of this to come.

DF: The AXIS Superhero Novels are
quite explicit when it comes to sex and violence. Again, was this a conscious
decision on your part or did the novels just develop that way over time?

RE: That’s
what they are, adult content in comic book terms. The superheroes and
supervillains are adults at play with real weapons. The sex and violence are unleashed
id. I see the art by Howard Chaykin with splattered heads and “Black Kiss” nymphos.

DF: Are there graphic novels or
comic books based on characters from the AXIS Superhero Novels planned for the
future?

RE: In 2015
AXIS will start going visual. The
plan involves art, graphic comix and novels and animated films. And merch. In
the future there will be action figures. Someday, a Taco Bell tie-in.

DF: Have you thought about opening
up the AXIS Universe to other writers in a fashion similar to the “Wild Cards”
series?

RE: That
never occurred to me. I don’t think other writers want a piece of this.

DF: What is the future of the AXIS
Universe?

RE: There
will be more new superheroes and supervillains. The Carousel will change his
name to Spinrax. There will be more like Bag of Green Army Men that take
place in the multiverse of KM Comics. I have a thing for steampunk, so I see an
AXIS steampunk series.

DF: What are your plans for your
writing career? Where is Raymond Embrack going to be five years from now?

RE: Going full
time writer. Five years from now: even more full time with extra full time.

DF: What are you working on now?

RE: Planning
the next Surf novel and the next AXIS novel, both to write in 2015.

DF: What’s a typical Day in the Life
of Raymond Embrack like?

RE: It
begins in the compound known as Embrack Wonderland. Report to the day job,
which is at home, at a desktop. Maybe lunch at Fat Sal’s. Whistle blows. Return
to Wonderland. When an Embrack novel is in production, writing may occur.

DF: Recommend a book, a TV show and
a movie.

BOOK: The
Storm Giants by Pearce Hansen

TV SHOW: The
Pleasure (Playboy TV Latin America)

MOVIE: The
Raid 2

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we
need to know?

Raymond
Embrack: This has been boss. Thanks for letting me kick it with you, Derrick.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Having read
four of his books now and one of them twice I think it’s safe to say that I’ve
become a fan of Raymond Embrack. It’s always such a pleasant surprise to
discover a writer who really makes me sit up and pay attention to what he’s
doing and Raymond Embrack certainly does that. Why do I like his writing so
much? I think it’s because he has that Swing For The Fences quality I always
enjoy reading. Each and every one of his books I’ve read so far reads as if
he’s afraid he’ll never write another one again and so they’re stuffed with off
the wall characters, wild ideas and wilder concepts. Add to that playful dialog married to
descriptive passages and labyrinthine plot twists that I do think he gets
carried away with at times. But we’ll
get into that later on. Right now let’s get into the plot of EL MOROCCO.

It’s the
swingin’ hepcat 1960’s and Guy Roman is a hot up-and-coming comic working
Atlantic City. He’s not quite big time yet but he’s on his way. Until he gets
derailed by New Jersey wiseguy wannabe Jackie Rockafero who blatantly hijacks
Guy’s comedy routine as he thinks it would be fun to trade leg-breaking and
loan sharking to be a stand-up comic. Naturally Guy takes exception to this.
Jackie offers Guy gold or lead. Guy takes lead and winds up left for dead in a
filthy A.C. alley alongside the ridiculously gorgeous showgirl Tess Revere who
has also pissed off Jackie in a way I would not dare dream of revealing here.

Once he
recovers, Guy, along with the brain damaged but still recovering Tess heads to
Los Angeles where Jackie has become a comedic megastar. Guy’s intention is to
not only take back his act but to make Jackie Rockafero sorry he was ever born.
The conflict between them escalates into a major war that before it’s over
involves the Hollywood film industry, celebrity gangster Mickey Cohen, crooked
gossip columnists, high powered agents who are little more than scam artists
and the West Coast Mafia a.k.a. The L.A. Set.

One of the
things that makes EL MOROCCO so much
fun to read is Raymond Embrack’s affinity for the language, attitudes and feel
for the 1960’s. His characters all have a wonderfully smart-ass way of talking
and yet he manages to not have them all sound the same. Everybody’s a smart-ass
in their own way, if you know what I mean. And the characters and tone of the
book are totally authentic to the time period. So those of you who are actively
PC should be warned. The people in EL
MOROCCO talk, act and think like people who lived in the 1960’s talked,
acted and thought and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m actually more
comfortable with that than with books that are supposed to be set in the
1930’s, 40’s, ‘50’s or ‘60’s but are peopled with characters from the ‘00’s.

What else
can I say to recommend the book? Raymond’s way of writing is one where he’s
clearly having fun with language and with words. He obviously enjoys the way
he’s telling the story in the language and style and rhythm of the dialog and
description. It’s really enjoyable to read his prose as it sings and swings
with the patois of 1960’s hipster jive talk.

What’s my
only quibble with the book? Remember earlier when I mentioned that Raymond gets
carried away with plot twists? The plot twists at the conclusion of EL MOROCCO come so fast and there are
so many of them that I felt he was pushing it and I was wondering if he was
deliberately trying to see how many plot twists he could throw in there before they
collapsed under their own weight. But that’s okay. Above all, I like and admire
Raymond Embrack for his sheer audacity and willingness to take the chance of
going too far with his bizarre plots and outrageous characters. It’s always
more fun to read a writer who isn’t afraid to Go There instead of one that
offers up easily digestible prose that is no more exciting to read than
recycled oatmeal is fun to eat. He’s an extremely entertaining writer and if
you’re going to start reading him, EL
MOROCCO is a great place to start.

There’s a
wonderful story told about the filming of the classic 1946 Humphrey
Bogart/Lauren Bacall murder mystery “The Big Sleep.” The plot of the book was
so convoluted that in translating it from print to screen, director Howard
Hawks and his screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman
discovered that not only weren’t they entirely sure who the killer of Sean
Reagan was, they also had a dead chauffeur on their hands and they couldn’t
figure out who killed him. In
desperation they contacted the writer of the book, Raymond Chandler to ask him
who killed Sean Regan and the chauffeur and Chandler had to admit that he
himself didn’t know.

Indeed,
there’s a wonderful bit right in the middle of “The Big Sleep” where Bogart’s
Philip Marlowe is called into the Los Angeles D.A.’s office to explain the case
to him and by extension to the us, the audience. Because by the time we’ve reached
that point of the movie the filmmakers felt that there needed to be some kind
of summary of what happened so that audiences back then could take a breath and
feel they were up on what had happened up until then.

I feel
kinda the same way about Raymond Embrack’s impressively deranged BARRACUDA: A PETER SURF NOVELLA. Halfway
through it needs somebody to hold up both hands, yell “Hold everything, please!”
and summarize the plot. And trust me, I mean that in a good way. Because in the
same way that “The Big Sleep” is now regarded as a classic of the private eye
genre, I think that BARRACUDA in its own way is going to become a classic. And
Raymond Embrack is a writer to watch.

Peter Surf
is a private eye living and working in Blonde City, a California city that
seems to be entirely made up of linked beaches each with their own distinctive
personality. Blonde City itself is one of the best characters in the story,
inhabited by gangs such as The Schoolgirl Mafia who commit thrill killings
while hopped up on Hentai-14 and The Beach Mafia whose members worship The
Beach Boys to the extent that all of them have the last name of “Smile” in
honor of Brian Wilson’s epic project. It’s a city that seems made up out of
equal parts of 1950’s, ‘60’s and ‘70’s pop culture with a healthy heaping dose
of whatever the hell Raymond Embrack felt like throwing in and believe me, he
makes it works. And for me watching him make it work was one of the fun things
about reading this story.

Peter Surf
himself is…well, the best way to describe him is if you imagined Mike Hammer
created by Quentin Tarantino instead of Mickey Spillane. He lives and works out
of a converted, arsenal filled service station and he doesn’t so much as do
straight up detective work as wreak havoc among his enemies until somebody
yells “uncle” and tells him what he wants to know.

And the
havoc is profane, sexy and violent and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The
story begins with Surf investigating a terrorist group called T-Unit. They’re
terrorizing the private eyes of Blonde City. They’re running some out of town
and outright killing others. They make the mistake of terrorizing Surf instead
of killing him. From then on, Peter Surf becomes a one man wrecking crew on the
warpath of T-Unit.

How this is
all tied with the DEA, a particularly dangerous man named Gronsky and Blue
Mermaid, a type of maryjane so mythical it’s supposed to be able to heal people
I would not dream of telling you. Just be advised that by the time you reach
the halfway point of BARRACUDA you may be tempted to say, “Hold everything,
please!” go back to the beginning and start reading all over again just to make
sure you know exactly what is going on.

That’s
because Mr. Embrack writes like this was the only book he was ever going to
write in his life. There’s an astounding amount of vibrantly alive characters,
situations and concepts that other writers would have spread out over a
trilogy. BARRACUDA is never boring and never lags due to the constant and
unending stream of sheer delightfully WTF plot twists Mr. Embrack throws at us
with glee.

The dialog
is pure classic P.I. genre porn where everybody talks like a dame or a smartass
or a tough guy. And Mr. Embrack allows himself to have fun with his concepts,
his prose and the dialog. I like to think that I can tell when a writer had fun
writing a story because that fun can’t help but translate into the prose. And
if Raymond Embrack has half as much fun writing BARRACUDA: A PETER SURF NOVELLA
as I did reading it then he had a big ol’ barrel of fun indeed. Highly
recommended reading.

I do gotta
point out that this is not for those of you who are PC minded or who object to
graphic language, violence and/or sex. But if you want to read a really good
crime/P.I. story that reminded me a lot of “Sin City” on crack you can’t do
better than BARRACUDA: A PETER SURF NOVELLA.